Chicken’s coming home to roost I’m afraid, Pearson is 100% correct about the way this club was run during the LJ, Ashton and Jon Lansdown era and the owner allowed it to happen, it was always going to end badly and here we are.
I agree with that, but I still think we should have performed better than we have this season and some of the blame has to lie with NP as well as the players..
Just saying that performances and results should have been better......Maybe even the minor detail of playing out in the last 10 mins of a game would have seen us further up the table.....players at fault I get it....but also the manager!
Easy with hindsight, but had COVID not happened, we would still be operating this way. This is/was the cost of competing for promotion to the Premiership; every club is/was doing it, we were not a special case therefore, SL sanctioned it.
Every new manager has to come in and deal with what was at the club before, this is not new and not an excuse. The reason we got someone like NP over another young untried at this level manager (which so many on here complained about), was that he should be able to. NP can cry all he wants, but the fact is he's an experienced and proven manager brought in to do a job, and he's doing an OK job, no better than that for me. He needs to stop bleeding to the press and get on with building a team that can stop the opposition from scoring 2 or more every game!
He has made mistakes but I am sorry but just like little Jon it is deflecting the blame from the real problems that were caused. We have allegedly overpaid players who we cannot give away, players who with the exception of Kalas and Bentley at least they look like they give a **** the rest have been shocking overall for us since they arrived and they should be match winners but are just robbing a living. Having the odd good game in 10 or 12 games is unacceptable. The irony for me is with the 40th anniversary of Ashton gate 8 coming up, just imagine asking todays badge kissing mercenaries to do the same? I accept that covid has accelerated us to this point but warning signs were there for all to see, myself and many others could see it but others still looked through rose coloured glasses at SL, Ashton and little Jon telling us that we had a strong squad and it's the core of what should have been a strong squad (and almost certainly the highest paid) that have been the main problem on the field and shown up by the younger players and a few others like Weimann and Baker. The situation for me is wonderfully explained in Bakinson's first interview at Ipswich where he claimed that he was 'a hard working player' yeah right, Pearson slapped him down saying 'I don't want players who think it's ok to play their way and not as instructed and coached'.
I take your point, although I’d say we are having to use a lot of young players, part of the consequence of which is they are prone to individual errors, as Nige pointed out many are having to perform above, or at least at their present limit. In the circumstances I don’t think we are under achieving as we are around where I expected us to be. Had we not lost as many points as we have towards the end of games we’d obviously be higher, but where we are reflects our ability at the moment imo
The truth hurts mate, he is 100% correct the way this club has been run beggars belief anything else is BS. You should support him, the central plank of his argument is to publicly say that selling your best young players is madness, something that you and others have said was the reason that LJ failed because apparently they were sold from beneath him.
The last time we were in a similar position it took relegation to L1 to sort it out. Hopefully this time under Nige we’ll achieve it whilst remaining in the championship. That’s hardly under achieving .
Of course covid had an impact, but it didn't need a shred of hindsight to realise we were selling the family jewels to balance the books (you keep telling us that) and then replacing them with players on far higher wages (allegedly) it was utter madness and unsustainable with or without covid.
It’s ok as long as you replace the sold players with quality replacements, we did initially then we didn’t and that’s why we are where we are now.
We did indeed and that ended with Webster and Brownhill, don't let's forget the other big money sales Flint, Reid and Bryan were here before LJ, Ashton and before little Jon was given the helm.
What Pearson has said in response to Jon Lansdown, for me as a layman, spot on. And it needed saying.
it makes a lot of difference because the model relied on not only bringing academy players through but also the young up and coming replacements through and that dried up with Webster and Brownhill.
Problem is IMO, that LJ was just getting a bit of momentum going with his team over the course of a couple of seasons and had decent players sold. NP with his experience and pedigree hasn't managed any momentum, with this current crop, he should be getting a lot better from them. It maybe the case that our model is bonkers, but IMO, should be concentrating on getting his own house in order.....words is one thing!!
Momentum that got him sacked and a model he signed up for 12 months before he was sacked. The players that are failing now, were failing then and ultimately failed for Holden and they are huge drain on finances. So 2 failed another is failing, who do you think could polish some of the overpaid turds that we cannot give away?
Interesting story in the Scum today….. https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/17685571/bristol-city-ian-pearce-wba-transfer-chief/amp/
I think as a club over the years we HAVE underachieved by a long way. I think we have held the dubious honour of being the largest city in the UK without a top flight football team since the early 1980s. However, as much as I’m sceptical about NP, I do t think he’s underachieved with us. He’s taken us to more or less where we should be - lowed mid table.
